Fictional books aren’t bad, like I thought before. I will share my story and write down why you should read them too.

When I Resisted Reading

Recently I started to read fictional books and I really enjoy it. I should have started it earlier.

When I was younger, my parents encouraged me a few times that I should read. I was so focused on playing video games that I never bothered. In school, we had compulsory readings, which also demotivated me with reading. I read a few, but did not care about them mostly for two reasons:

It Is a Must

Whenever something is a must, people tend to look at the task negatively. It was not my idea to read, they forced me to do it.

There is a great example that can help to understand this situation. The kid is at home, he is somehow bored, doesn’t have anything to do. He has a great idea: “I am going to help my mom, I rarely do anyway.”. He goes to the kitchen. Right before he opens the dishwasher, the mom tells him: “Would you help me unload the plates for once?“. Poof, it is no longer an own idea. The world narrows down around him, now he has no motivation to do the chore.

“How should I read it, when it is forced on me?”

It Was Boring

I thought that it was really dull. Maybe some were really not for the younger generation.

Looking back, I think that those novels could have been good too. The problem was that I never read anything. Of course, I’ve read shorter novels from the textbooks. But a complete book? Never.

I think when you start reading books the main thing that matters is just to read, the what comes second. Get into the “world of books”, get used to it. They could make it easier by transitioning to larger ones step by step. First a 40-page book, then a 60 and after a few we would reach 200-page-long books. This should be applied too with the style used in them.

The Start

To learn some clever stuff, I started to read non-fictional books. My first serious was The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. I read book after book and learned so much from them. At that time I though reading non-fiction is a waste of time. Why should I read it if it does not give me clear knowledge? My opinion changed few months ago.

In school, they gave us compulsory readings. It was shorter than they usually are, and I also needed a good grade. I read it and I enjoyed it. After reading so much, actually sitting down and reading it was easy, it wasn’t a problem anymore. A few weeks after that we had another one to read. I gave that a shot too, but now I’ve read it from a real physical book. Once again, I enjoyed it.

Few weeks ago I found great advice from Essentialism by Greg McKeown. The author tells that reading is very important, it gives us space to explore. He wrote that it is a good strategy to read each 20 minutes every day from a book that was written before the hyperconnected era. This was the thing that finally pushed me to read fictional books, I do it almost every day since.

The Positives I Discovered

Relaxation

Use it to relax, calm your thoughts. If you are interested in that particular story it is good entertainment for sure. You have time for it. Read some, instead of another social media session! In breaks, I used to reach for my phone or launch some YouTube video on my PC, but now I reach for my book.

What Was It Like Back Then?

If the story plays before the hyperconnected era (or way before that) you can get a better sense how things were then. How was it without the internet? What about the lack of mobile phones, how did they communicate? Life without electricity?

Creativity

It has a good effect on creativity. You have to imagine what the author writes down. It is totally different than watching a film. Nowadays, we look at so much media that we forget what this feels like.